


Hang-Ups

by WearingOutWinter



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4016827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WearingOutWinter/pseuds/WearingOutWinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all have their hang-ups. So they get through the bad days together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hang-Ups

**Author's Note:**

> *sigh* Figures it takes season 2 being right around the corner to get me posting again. In any case, enjoy!

There are days when Carmilla's body betrays her. There are times when it remembers it is something _wrong_ , a dead thing too long above ground. On those days, she can feel her skin whither and crack, feel the stolen blood in her veins dry to dust. Rigor mortis curls her limbs in on themselves and peels her lips back into a skull's perfect smile. On those days, Laura curls up close behind her, her heart beating strong against the vampire's back. On those days, Danny goes out to the Summer Society house and returns with a bottle of something thin and red and acidic, and they feed Carmilla a spoonful at a time. And, eventually, her lungs fill. Eventually, her blood flows. And then Laura kisses her cheek and Danny kisses her crown, and they fall asleep as a tangled twelve-limbed monster.

There are nights when Danny dreams. She hasn't told them what about yet. But when they wake she's shivering, the muscles of her neck and back stretched taut as bridge cables. And the cold sweat that soaks the sheets smells of ash. On those nights, Laura kneels astride her back and kneads the tension from her shoulders, hot hands working slowly. On those nights, Carmilla opens a window and lights a fire in the trashcan and yanks the batteries from the smoke detector. And eventually, Danny stops shaking. Eventually, the color returns to her skin. And then Laura kisses her between her shoulder blades and Carmilla kisses her between her breasts, and they wrap themselves in the heaviest blanket they own and wake up sweltering.

There are times when Laura remembers. Remembers that she is small and bright and young in a universe that is vast and dark and ancient. Remembers that stories like hers so rarely have happy endings. Times like that are variable. Sometimes, if the weather is fine, Carmilla sits with Laura's head in her lap and read her poetry of love and loss and death. And if the weather is fine, Danny sits close by, knife in hand, coaxing the curves of a bow from a trunk of yew. And if it's a close, dark night, when the rain beats down on the windows and the moon and stars shed no light, then they gather in Laura's dorm room and draw the blinds. And then, Carmilla breaks open her stash to reveal liquor in every color of the rainbow, and Danny flips the bottles like she's spent her whole life behind a bar. She mixes strange cocktails Laura's never heard of, and the glasses fill as fast as they can empty them. Then Carmilla sings (loudly, and off-key) songs that were bawdy and scandalous in 1740, but time has rendered merely quaint, and Danny wraps her arms around Carmilla and Laura and keens a high, wailing verse in a language that neither of them speak, but that conjures tears and chokes the throat in grief.

And when it's done, when all their tears are spent and the sky grows quiet, then being human feels warm and real again. Then they sit and hold one another until the dawn comes, and the light returns to the world. Not a world without darkness, nor one without fear or sorrow or monsters. But it is their world again. One they can deal with. One they can live in. And Laura believes, when looks at the women she loves, that they have it in them to take that world on and win.

They all have their hangups. The catches and the cracks that lurk in their psyche or sleep in their bones. So when the days are grim and the nights are hollow or haunted, they'll make it through. Because they all have each other, too.

 


End file.
